Sunday, June 12, 2016

Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover

You know that one thing readers say you should never do?
Never judge a book by it’s cover, right? Well, I’m guilty as charged. I do this
all the time. Even though I’ve grown
up hearing this phrase, and yes, I believe it’s important, I still do it. Why
is that?

Several reasons actually. It’s there something just
marvelous about art? When visual art is combined with the power of words, a
magical thing is created. How can we not judge a book by its cover if we are
predetermined to judge art? If you don’t believe me, take a look at two of my
collections:

Don’t tell me they’re not pretty. Look at the details on
those covers! On the left, you can see so many layers in the night sky, and if
you look closely at Sherlock’s silhouette on the right you can see it’s made up
of smaller images. (Yes, I did keep the price tag on Arabian Nights. No, you can’t buy it from me. I like the peel the
stickers off gradually as I read because I’m a fiddler, [not the musical type].)

But there come times when art can be misleading,
discouraging readers from picking up particular books. Take this one for
example:

I hate this cover.
This is actually a library copy. When I was reading it for my class Speculative
Fictions, I was super self-conscious, kept the cover facing down whenever I was
in public. In fact, from the very cover, I thought I’d hate the book itself.
Instead, I ended up liking it and giving it 4/5 stars. Yes, the cover is crude,
and there are some parts of the book that were disturbing, but I appreciated
how Fevvers is a woman who ultimately doesn’t rely on other people for her
identity, and throughout the book gender norms are often reversed. And the
writing style is poetical.

On the other hand, pretty covers can be misleading.

I’d say this one is intriguing to say the least. It can lead
readers to ask questions and crack open the book? Why is the sun so big? What’s
the ruined structure? Who are the characters? And to be honest, even though
I’ve read the book, I still don’t know. Last
and First Men only has a couple selected characters. Humankind is the main
character of this book. Overall, while I found everything rather interesting, I
didn’t care for the book and gave it 2/5 stars.

Then there’s my Tolkien collection.

Not bad, right? Sure, some people don’t care for movie
adaptations as covers, and sure this scene is from THE TWO TOWERS, but the book itself is good. And besides, it
matches The Silmarillion in size and looks nice next to it on my shelf. Then I
went out and bought these beauties:

Brilliant right? The shading, the angles, oh, I just love
it. Except they don’t match. But in a
way, this mishmash of editions is like my life as an army brat. I’ve moved
around so much that I’ve picked up various cultures along the way. They may be
different, and I’ve lived in different states and countries for different
lengths of time. But despite my experiences, I’m still me on the inside.

Covers are unreliable. Yes, they can be pretty (or maybe
not), but they are not the end-all-be-all of books. The words are. That’s why we read books, isn’t it? For the words? Yet
it’s still difficult to separate an idea of a book (the cover) from the book
itself (the individual words) until you’ve actually read it.

So, how do we go about not judging a book by its cover? Here
are just a few tips that I use:

1)Read
the back blurb first.

If you can, don’t even look at the cover. Just read the
description on the back or online. This will help give you a sense of the story
more so than the cover. I did this with We
Were Liars (4/5 stars; definitely recommend. Book review coming soon!).

Pros: Getting actual words!

Cons: Sometimes the back blurb gives away important
parts of the book. If this book came with a recommendation, just skip the cover
entirely and read the book!

2)Ask
for recommendations.

Word of mouth is a great way to find good books because
they’ve already passed the test of at least one person.

Pros: If you enjoy the book, you already have
somebody to discuss it with and you might find even more good books to read in
the future.

Cons: Different people have different tastes. Until
you find somebody who has similar tastes as you, you might end up with
recommendations you hate.

3)Read
reviews.

This is one of my favorite things to do. Not only do you get
to read the blurb, which tells me what it’s about, but you can actually read
what other people thought about it and why they did or didn’t like it. I even
like to read the bad reviews because if all of the negative reviews center
around the book being too long or simply too poetical, I’ll probably pick it
up.

Pros: You’re more likely to know what you’re getting
into, and it can lead you to think about things you wouldn’t have considered
before.

Cons: Other people’s opinions can taint yours and
potentially ruin your chances of picking up or enjoying a book.

4)Take
a chance.

Whether it’s grabbing a book merely based off the title,
reading a book because of an ugly
cover, or buying one of those books wrapped in paper so you can’t see the cover
or the blurb (a.k.a. a blind date with a book), go for it. No matter how much
pre-reading prep you do, reading a book is always taking a chance. So what are
you waiting for?

Pros: You get to read a book! Who knows what you’ll
discover.

Cons: You might choose the wrong book and end up spending
money on something you don’t enjoy. But then, you’ll just have to get another
one.

I hope this helps. And remember, despite all the temptation,
don’t judge a book by its cover. You never know which favorites you might
discover if you take a chance!

***

Be honest, how often—if ever—do you judge a book by its
cover? What’s your favorite book cover? What are some of the ways you pick
which books to read?

Literary references: Tales from the Arabian Nights, translated by Sir Richard Francis
Burton, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Other Stories, Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus, Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, and E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars.